Petteri Pyyny
27 Oct 2003 12:56
DVD Forum, the governing body of DVD specifications, including the DVD-Video specs, has apparently decided to stick with the current DVD disc capacity and technology with its new DVD-Video specs.
Most of the industry analysts were betting that DVD Forum would choose to use either existing 8.5GB red-laser discs with MPEG-4 video encoding or new 25GB blue-laser discs with existing MPEG-2 video encoding. But no. Instead the new DVD-Video specs, dubbed as 'Enhanced DVD', will use the same video encoding as current DVD-Video discs and the same disc size as current DVD-Video discs.
The only new data that will be added to the new specification over the old one relates to online content and authorization systems. Basically the next-generation 'Enhanced DVD'-capable DVD players would be able to connect directly to Internet and use online sites that the DVD disc relates to, to deliver further content to user. So, in theory, this is aimed to replace now-used DVD-ROM sections of DVD-Video discs, to allow stand-alone DVD players to access that kind of data as well. Other part most likely relates to online content as well: discs will be able to carry authentication data that can be, most likely, used to purchase content or movie-related products by using the DVD itself as an authentication device when accessing to beforementioned online content.
It is most likely that DVD Forum's decision killed off the idea of MPEG-4 material on red-laser discs, but it remains to be seen what blue-laser developers will say about this situation. Blu-Ray already exists and price of the blue-laser technology is coming down rather rapidly..
Sources:
NE Asia
TheRegister